Kampala, Uganda – The Chief Executive Officer of Uganda Airlines, Jenifer Bamuturaki, has issued a stern rebuke against social media users, accusing them of waging a damaging campaign to tarnish the image of the national carrier by falsely claiming its Bombardier aircraft are unsafe.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!While responding to questions from Parliament’s COSASE committee stemming from the Auditor General’s report for the year ending December 2023, Bamuturaki issued a strong defense to directly counter a persistent and harmful online narrative.
“It is unfortunate that social media has taken a different angle. In terms of our safety and airworthiness, our aircraft meet all international safety standards. We make sure we comply with every regulation as well as every policy that is imposed on us by the regulator,” Bamuturaki told lawmakers.
The CEO revealed a significant milestone for the five-year-old airline, disclosing that it has generated cumulative revenues of UGX 1.2 Trillion since 2019, thereby countering safety concerns with its financial performance.
Highlighting a dramatic growth trajectory, Bamuturaki provided figures showing a stark increase from the airline’s inaugural year.
“If we look at our revenues from the time the airline was started in 2019, when it made only UGX 28.5 Billion, now the airline, cumulatively up to the last financial year made UGX 1.2 Trillion. That shows a growth pattern,” she stated.
Appearing before the COSASE committee, the airline’s Head of Engineering, Peter Emuge, addressed the issue of aircraft safety in greater technical detail, specifically refuting claims that the Canadian-made CRJ900 Bombardier jets are unsafe due to a scarcity of spare parts.
Emuge confirmed that parts procurement is challenging but clarified it’s a global aviation crisis, not unique to Uganda Airlines, explaining that while spare parts are available, a severely disrupted supply chain has led to long wait times and inflated prices.
“This is a global issue and it’s not only affecting Uganda Airlines or Uganda. It’s affecting all aircraft types—that means the CRJ, the Airbuses, the Boeings,” Emuge testified.
Emuge traced the root of the systemic problem directly to the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented event that brought global air travel to a near halt and triggered a catastrophic rupture in aviation supply chains.
He explained that the current crisis stems from the industry’s rapid recovery dramatically outpacing the painfully slow rebuild of global supply chains.
“The aviation market’s powerful bounceback after COVID-19 created a massive surge in demand for aircraft, forcing production lines to ramp up and compete fiercely for the same critical parts,” Emuge stated.
The CEO and head of engineering presented a unified front, stating that while the airline faces the same global supply chain issues as other carriers, claims that its aircraft are therefore unsafe are false and threaten the reputation of a financially progressing company.
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